Factors of Family Violence in the Southern Province of Rwanda

Despite the elevated prevalence and detrimental effects of family violence on survivors in developing countries, little is known about a dimensional empirically based comprehensive structure of family violence.

Based on family violence theories, this study aimed to identify factors of family violence in a sample of Rwandans living in all the eight District Police Units of the Southern Rwanda.

A sample of 89 spouses (females = 56.5%, males = 43.5%) were selected to participate in this cross-sectional study. From already existing family violence theories and family violent events lived by participants of this study, a 38-item self-constructed Likert questionnaire (α=0.80) was generated. An exploratory factor analysis approach was used.

The results showed that two factors mostly influencing violence in family were mainly based on individual issues (i.e. violence as a trauma, insecure attachment, aggressive behaviour learnt, reactive aggression, and learnt helplessness) and family-social issues (i.e. family life cycle and stress, dependency relation, need to maintain power and control, and low material satisfaction).

The results highlight that family violence is a very complex but assessable entity where individual and family-social factors intervene. Future studies should explore such combination in prospective longitudinal studies.